A Doctor Is Charged With Fraud in Eye Surgery on the Mentally Ill

By CLIFFORD J. LEVY

Published: May 24, 2002

An ophthalmologist accused of conducting unnecessary eye surgery on mentally ill residents of adult homes in New York City surrendered to the authorities yesterday and was charged with health care fraud, officials said.

In a complaint unsealed in federal court in Manhattan, prosecutors said the ophthalmologist, Dr. Shaul Debbi, had paid a monthly fee to a worker at Leben Home in Elmhurst, Queens, to gain access to residents. The prosecutors charged that Dr. Debbi had performed cataract surgery on one eye of a mentally ill resident who had not complained about his vision, adding that the surgery led to serious complications.

Dr. Debbi also wanted to perform cataract surgery on the resident's other eye, according to the complaint. The resident refused the surgery, and a doctor at a Veterans Health Administration hospital later determined that the other eye did not have a cataract, the complaint states.

James B. Comey, the United States attorney in Manhattan, said in a statement that the complaint sends ''a clear message that doctors who are entrusted to provide sound medical care for their patients -- including the mentally ill who are among the most vulnerable of patients -- will be vigorously prosecuted for their efforts to profit from performing unnecessary procedures.''

The prosecutors' investigation into Dr. Debbi began this month after his treatment of residents of the homes, including the one in the complaint, Kurt Trentmann, was detailed in an article in The New York Times. The article described how mentally ill residents of the homes were often financially exploited by the homes' operators, doctors and other health care providers.

It said Dr. Debbi conducted nearly 50 eye operations on more than 30 Leben residents in 1999 and 2000, including Mr. Trentmann's surgery in the fall of 1999. The procedures cost the government more than $25,000, billing records show.

After a hearing yesterday in federal court in Manhattan, Dr. Debbi's lawyer, John R. Wing, praised him and said information about him in The Times was misleading.

''He is basically a very caring doctor who is helping people in situations where many other doctors of his quality would not invest their time,'' Mr. Wing said.

Reached last night, Mr. Trentmann said he was relieved that officials had taken action against Dr. Debbi. ''If he messed up my eye, he can do it to somebody else,'' Mr. Trentmann said. ''And I don't want anybody to go through the stuff that I went through.''

Soon after the April 30 article appeared, Dr. Debbi, 48, who holds both Israeli and American citizenship but has lived in New York for many years, went to Israel, officials said. F.B.I. agents obtained a warrant for his arrest on May 10.

Mr. Wing negotiated his surrender, and at the hearing yesterday, a federal magistrate judge, Debra C. Freeman, released him on a $1 million bond. In the complaint, signed by Special Agent Robert Hilland of the F.B.I., Dr. Debbi was charged with a single count of health care fraud, punishable upon conviction by a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Dr. Debbi was not required to enter a plea at the hearing. The United States attorney's office plans to seek an indictment against him in the coming months, and officials said they expected that the indictment would include many more cases than the complaint, which was filed quickly to ensure that Dr. Debbi did not become a fugitive. As part of the terms of his release, he and his immediate family members surrendered their passports.

The case against Dr. Debbi is being brought by two assistant United States attorneys, Paul B. Radvany and Kim A. Berger. It is one facet of separate, wide-ranging inquiries into the city's adult homes by federal prosecutors in Manhattan and Brooklyn, prompted by a three-part series in The Times last month.

Photo: Dr. Shaul Debbi and his wife, Dr. Eileen Debbi, at the courthouse in Manhattan. (Nicole Bengiveno/The New York Times)